Archive for June, 2004

I am not very well, I don’t do ill terribly graciously I get quite grumpy and today is no exception. I woke up this morning feeling a little more tired than usual but then I hadn’t slept especially well the last couple of nights and I’ve been going to bed too late, well I had my blog reputation to uphold! It’s a lame excuse I must be more careful, the poor old body doesn’t respond as well to burning the candle at both ends as it did when I was 23. I went to work and was feeling reasonably ok but by 10 o’clock I started getting stomach cramps and feeling decidedly Dickie Davies, so rough in fact that I actually discharged myself from work and drove home. After some fitful sleep and feeling very dizzy when I got up I reacquainted myself with my colon somewhat forcefully, I don’t think I’ve ever been that sick before and there have been a couple of times but this was horrible, I hate being sick and bearing in mind it was 7 hours after I’d had a bowl of cereal which was the only thing I’d had to eat all day the quantity seemed disproportionate, that being said I don’t think I’m overweight any more! So I have spent the rest of the time being rather sorry for myself and doing a passable impression of Bill Nighy in Sean of the Dead. I hate hot and cold flushes it’s BOLLOCKS.

I think it a strong possiblity that I have caught this from my little dears and consequently they have now been listed on ebay, my responsibility as a parent ensures that a healthy reserve price has been set!

I’m afraid that’s all you get now, I’m tired and feeling shitty so I may stay up long enough for Red Dwarf but I’m not sure I’ve got the stamina. Bed before midnight and no food for the Baron that’s when you know it’s bad!

Song Of The Day – California Soul ~ Marlena Shaw

Original Comments:

The Skunx made this comment,
I
comment added :: 30th June 2004, 00:47 GMT+01
The Skunx made this comment,
am
comment added :: 30th June 2004, 00:47 GMT+01
The Skunx made this comment,
trying
comment added :: 30th June 2004, 00:48 GMT+01
The Skunx made this comment,
trying
comment added :: 30th June 2004, 00:48 GMT+01
The Skunx made this comment,
to
comment added :: 30th June 2004, 00:48 GMT+01
The Skunx made this comment,
climb
comment added :: 30th June 2004, 00:49 GMT+01
The Skunx made this comment,
the
comment added :: 30th June 2004, 00:49 GMT+01
The Skunx made this comment,
commentor’s
comment added :: 30th June 2004, 00:49 GMT+01
The Skunx made this comment,
chart.
comment added :: 30th June 2004, 00:50 GMT+01
protagonist made this comment,
sorry skunx, that isn’t the way to do it.
comment added :: 30th June 2004, 13:00 GMT+01
David S made this comment,
it’s Shaun of the Dead not Sean of the dead
Visit me @ http://glasgowdave.blog-city.com

comment added :: 30th June 2004, 17:21 GMT+01
john made this comment,
How come when ever you are sick it contains diced carrots, even if you never eat them ?
Visit me @ http://bigjohn.blog-city.com/

comment added :: 30th June 2004, 17:47 GMT+01
The Skunx made this comment,
I suggest that you delete all my joke comments or they will fuck with your stats.
#

It would appear to be official now, I got the call that Apple are sending me a free iPod -I am the man! This is not totally unwarranted as I had originally wanted to buy one but then had all the probs with the car and had to cancel the order because I couldn’t afford it. Anyway the order cancelled but the money didn’t refund and I got the run-around at the Apple cust. service, now let me explain a little something here. Firstly I do not do fobbed off I can get quite irate especially when I feel I am in the right, and heaven help them if I know that legally I’m in the right! Secondly I worked for Apple some while ago doing various things including CR for a bit so I know how the structure works and who can and who can’t get things done. Thirdly I may not be particularly important in the world-wide scheme of things but in the UK Mac community I am not without a degree of influence and if I get shirty then I can spread my dissatisfaction amongst a pretty wide and influential net. Hence when I started getting fobbed off I implemented my 3 strikes and out policy which goes as follows

Strike 1 -you talk very sweetly to the person at CR, explain the situation and ask if they’ll sort it out,

Strike 2- you explain a little more forcefully to the person that you’d like things resolved quite quickly please and you will be forced to talk to a manager if it doesn’t get dealt with,

Strike 3 -you talk to a manager at which point you have more license to lose your temper, (there is no point losing your temper with the initial person because they are like as not 24 fresh out of college in a call-centre somewhere in the world on shite pay with no training, it isn’t their fault the company has shit policy so don’t take it out on them besides if you do they will understandably be a lot less helpful. the manager on the other hand has taken the corporate equivalent of the King’s Shilling and is therefore fair game. At this point it is also fair enough to do a bit of name dropping, just so they know you’re serious)

If after this process I am not happy then I will use my contacts with the names I have dropped and start demanding that arses are kicked. However you have to be careful, once you have annoyed the call centre management enough to get thru’ to a real person with genuine authority then it’s time to turn on the charm, this way you can have a reasonable conversation whilst also making them think that the call centre manager is being unreasonable saying that you’re a “stroppy tosser”. It is if you get to this stage that whilst it has taken a long time to resolve the rewards tend to be better for the time invested. Hence in this instance the Baron gets his iPod, Apple are very sorry Mr Baron Sir they hope you haven’t been too inconvenienced Mr Baron Sir and will you now please stop telling the news editor of MacUser, the head of Apple Exec. Relations and the head of Apple Education Sales how disgruntled you are. [No my name is not really Mr Baron I was making a point!] So honour is satisfied, the Baron feels that his ego has been pampered to a little not to mention having son a new toy to play with and Apple get rid of one very persistent and annoying bastard for the paltry sum of £200 odd, not much really is it?

The moral of the story is you don’t fuck with the Baron -I’m a serious bastard me!

And my new G5 w/ ASD17 arrived today -lots of toys hoo-waa. OK so it’s not my G5 it’s works but I am the Mac geezer so I get to play with it!

I am still smarting from ebay being bastards and this is going to sod up my financial situation a fecking treat, altho’ my house-mate says he will lend me his ebay details -you didn’t hear nothing right! But I am consoled with the fact that I will have an iPod to play my Tunez -which is pretty kushtie.

Oh and did you really think I’d stay off the top 5 after all that. No Sir, the Baron is back to his almost rightful place and has just Pimme and the almost invincible Protagonist to go! Feel the blog diving force that is the Baron trying to avoid doing any work on a Monday!

Song Of The Day – Athlete ~ You Got The Style

Original Comments:

A visitor made this comment,
You go–you serious bastard, you!
bluepoppy [bluepoppy@omworks.com]

comment added :: 29th June 2004, 02:23 GMT+01
protagonist made this comment,
almost invincible?
no baron, we ARE invincible.
one of the benefits of having multiple personalities, i suppose.

comment added :: 29th June 2004, 02:32 GMT+01
Rachel made this comment,
well….would you look at that…? number four… never would have looked at that without a tip off. you might be ahead of me now….but…i got some serious bitchings to write about. and you never know!!! speaking of how naive i am, i don’t deal with ebay, it would be WAY too easy for someone to trick me, since i just can’t deal with these monstrosities! (computers)
Visit me @ http://palmysinfullbloom.blog-city.com

comment added :: 29th June 2004, 02:36 GMT+01
Rachel made this comment,
so…as long as i stay below you, i’m safe. 🙂 ok. my computer fuck up of the year.
-took burning software off, temporarily
-got new computer and new moniter
-put software back on
-fucked up the computer
-had to buy ANOTHER computer
-managed to download a virus
-had to buy ANOTHER moniter
-damn burning software still wouldn’t work
-bought new burning software
god, i SUCK at these things!!!
Visit me @ http://palmysinfullbloom.blog-city.com

comment added :: 29th June 2004, 02:52 GMT+01
Lizard Breath made this comment,
good job ‘damning the man’ – the apple man that is.
have fun w/ the new toy.
lizard.

comment added :: 29th June 2004, 04:00 GMT+01
protagonist made this comment,
that’s right, baron. drop the ALMOST.
and thanks for the advice on the CR stuff. I need to get my laptop fixed. I threw a fit at the place in AA that charged us a bundle and did nothing that wasn’t in the dummy guide to macs book.

enjoy having the choice of any of 10,000 songs in any of the locations you might choose. I have converted my laptop into something of a very expensive i pod, but I thank the japanese people who were really the ones who paid for it on someone’s grant that was running out (i got a call one night from my boss and he told me to go to the computer store and buy $8000 dollars worth of computers, but that I had to do it before midnight or we all would turn into pumpkins)

comment added :: 29th June 2004, 17:20 GMT+01
protagonist made this comment,
i used to work in computer tech support and i can assure you that most tech support guys don’t know much more than: reboot, scandisk, defrag.
comment added :: 29th June 2004, 21:04 GMT+01
David S made this comment,
Fascinating.
Visit me @ http://glasgowdave.blog-city.com

comment added :: 30th June 2004, 11:41 GMT+01
David S made this comment,
oh has the battery run out yet, you must have had it for at least 2 hours
comment added :: 30th June 2004, 11:47 GMT+01
Cancergiggles made this comment,
I have a similar strategy however my strike 3 is to email and fax the C.E.O. and Chairman of the offending Company an if relevant to threaten a winding up order. Most people don’t realize that this is possible but it concentrates their minds wonderfully because they are prohibited from issuing invoices after the order is issued. It never, ever fails. I did it to Shell once for an insignificant amount of money and they couriered a cheque to me.
I have to admit that I don’t always bother with Strike 2.
Cass
Visit me @ http://cancergiggles.blog-city.com/

comment added :: 1st July 2004, 10:51 GMT+01
Cancergiggles made this comment,
Can’t remember exactly how it is done (never actually needed it) but basically you apply to a court for a winding up order because a company owes money. Doesn’t matter how little and once the order is issued they have to cease trading. It’s as stupid as that.
Visit me @ http://cancergiggles.blog-city.com/

comment added :: 1st July 2004, 19:29 GMT+01
Pimme made this comment,
Once, when I had to call in for customer support, the idiot who took my call INSISTED that I remove some screw on my CPU that wasn’t there! He was looking at an image of a computer on his screen, not an actual computer like I was, and he obviously had the wrong image.
Visit me @ http://pimme.blog-city.com

I decided to review this book in light of a lot of Americans going to see Farenheit 9/11. Now I like Michael Moore and for the Americans he is way out there, but we in Europe can cope with stronger stuff and that is exactly what this is. I read this book in 1998 and I can genuinely say it changed me, I had suspected and summised but this was proof and lots of it. Pilger’s style of writing is easy to follow, this is after all a very long book but I found it absolutely compelling. Pilger’s facts are meticulously researched and mostly stem from first hand experience. In my view he is the finest investigative journalist of our time and has done so much to expose the bad side of globalisation and the world we currently live in. He has the clout to follow things thru’ and make waves and piss people off. Don’t think that the occasional film on ITV is all there is to John Pilger, his volume of work is impressive but this is the one I started with and I recommend it to anyone as a gateway.
Do not read this book if you are not prepared to be horrified and sickened at the shit that is perpetrated to give us our comfortable lives. Do read this book if you really want to know what is going on. If you have read George Monbiot and Naomi Klein and such like then this is an absolute must read. If you haven’t then after reading this you will read them and Uncle Noam too.

Well, not proper catastrophes but since I am still in one-word title mode it seemed apposite. Firstly ebay caught up with me again, they always seem to manage it when I am selling lots of stuff, this is a real bollocks because I spent fucking ages over the w/e listing shit and now I feel that the kids missed out on their time for nothing. Don’t bother asking why ebay hunt me down, I don’t rip people off I just didn’t pay my sellers fees some time ago and they got pissed off and I got pissed off and they suspended me – I don’t even remember the email address I was using then anymore but ever since then I register with a diff. set of details and I play ball and pay the fees because I simply need to list the stuff and eventually they catch up with me and suspend me in a guilt by association thing. Anyway each time they get me it gets a little more tricky because my best mate and I have run out of credit cards now (he’s suspended for the same reason as well!) It’s irritating because this one had been going since Feb. and I’d been very good, in fact yest. I paid them £20 for fees -surprising how they didn’t suspend me before that point eh? It’s also annoying because I keep racking up positive feedback and then have to start again. But the time is definitely the worst part the amount of time it takes to figure out setting up a new account, if I’m able to do it this time, and then to list all the stuff again, is a right bitch. It is really the worst possible time for this to happen as well because I was getting quite disciplined at selling stuff, it wasn’t bringing in much money, just a little here and there which is better than not having it at all.

Then there’s the blog tragedy the significance of which pales in comparison -I refer to my recent relegation from the premier league of commentors. I have occupied the Top 5 table for some months now and whilst no longer at the top of my game like Pimme is currently I liked to consider 3rd or 4th spot pretty much my own. Now I bow graciously to sexuality because David has become the bc sex therapist of sorts, but to be betrayed by Rachel, now that hurt I can tell you and then whilst languishing in 5th Karen goes on a spree and knocks me back into blog obscurity. I don’t mind telling you I feel quite used and spat out.

After a period of reflection which was preceeded by some gnashing of teeth and a selection of quality profanities, I realised that I have indeed been a little lax of late and having a brief foray into the blog world I see how Pimme is in fact carrying on the noble art of blog-diving much as I used to. I became clear that it was time to get back in blog scuba gear and go for a splash. Some 30 minutes later I realised why I had not gone in for some time, the stench out there people, Jesus there is some awful stuff, granted there is some enlightening stuff and many of you that I visit regularly nowadays I found having a ferret around, and there is some very very wierd shit as well. What worries me is I find it all rather alluring, the bad stuff falls into 2 categories generally political dross and self-indulgent claptrap, the political dross I just have to get involved with, I can’t help it it’s the red mist you see! The self-indulgent stuff I tend to leave alone, they wouldn’t notice me anyway [A-ha you say so who’s the self-indulgent one now? -touché you got me on that one!]. The enlightening stuff, well to be honest I didn’t find a lot of new stuff out there of that nature, I suspect they may well be hiding but one is largely dependent on things like recent entries and such. Then the wierd stuff and by crickey there’s some of that, some is nice wierd, some is kind of wierd wierd, and some is downright disquieting. But therein lies the fun. the diversity of people is just a joy to behold sometimes, to get an insight into people we would not look at in the street or who might not even ever be in the street is interesting, it is normal that some characters we find interesting and others dull this is our subjective attraction to certain traits and not others. There’s a whole world out there people and it is just as scary and exciting as the one outside our door.

Original Comments:

Rachel made this comment,
call me ignorant, but as far as the blog tragedy (“”) i have no idea what your talking about. mind you, technology has NEVER agreed with me, so i don’t know how to check this top 5 table. please, explain. 🙂
Visit me @ http://palmysinfullbloom.blog-city.com

I’ve been a bit snowed under today so although I have some blogs in draft I haven’t really time to finish them properly. So here’s one I’ve been sitting on for just such an occasion.

Since it appears to be all the rage at the mo’ and bearing in mind I have already given you the basic introduction bit as to who I am here are some slightly odder facts.

Strange things you wouldn’t know about the Baron by looking at him.

1. For as long as he can remember the Baron has only ever been able to breathe out of one nostril, whilst at school he thought this was normal in later life it transpires much to his surprise that most people can breath out of both -except Daniella Westbrook ‘cos she’s only got one anyway!. The Baron cannot remember whether it is a birth thing or came about when clonked on the nose by whatever it was that made his nose go on a wonk when very young. The Baron’s Father has never had a sense of smell.

2. The Baron has 2 distinguishing marks: The first a raised scar on the forehead comes from taking Asterix in Spain a little too seriously and passing out; the second just below the lip comes the same year when getting too friendly with a Rhodesian Ridgeback Dog who decided that the Baron might make a suitable snack before dinner.

3. The Baron has had an article published in a global publication and can therefore claim to be a published writer, sadly the proposed payment never materialised and so he cannot claim to be a professional writer! The article was laboriously dull and the publication not much better.

4. The Baron has qualifications in drinking wine! This is not where the name Red Baron comes from!

5. The Baron was pronounced ‘educationally subnormal’ at the age of 11 and his relationship with various scholastic institutions continued along roughly similar lines until discovering in a damascine-like conversion in final year at University that one had to actually do some work. As a consequence of this seeing the light the Baron was rewarded with a quite decent BA Hons degree much to the astonishment of friends and family.

6. The Baron does not drink Coffee, ever. The Baron has drunk a total of 7 cups of coffee in his lifetime including 3 Espressos in 1 day (he counts the experiences of said occasion as part of the drug-induced memories of his past) However the Baron enjoys the smell of freshly-ground coffee. The Baron drinks approximately 10-15 cups of tea a day, the prospect of a tea shortage does not compute and why would you make me think about such nasty things on my own blog anyway? No I don’t have a problem and do you want a fight and who’s got the fucking assam?!

7. Apparently I have quite hairy arms according to someone who shall remain nameless purely due to the impending legal action that I shall be taking for slander not to mention defamation of character, “Wolfman” I think the phrase was, I mean the nerve as if having to howl at the moon every 4 weeks wasn’t bad enough, she was bloody lucky I wasn’t feeling peckish at the time owing to having just consumed a large steak sandwich. I put this in the section ‘Things you wouldn’t know about the Baron by looking at him’ because it isn’t something that many people comment on, I also usually have my arms covered up tho’ not I hasten to add because they’re hairy! Altho’ now of course I shall be especially careful to ensure all T-Shirt purchases are long-sleeved! Anyone else comments on the Baron’s arms they’re going to get a fang where it hurts!

8. The Baron has in his time dabbled with narcotics, he no longer does chemicals out of choice after a rather bad experience and no longer smokes weed more out of cicumstance ‘cos no fucker ever seems to have any!

9. The Baron has never slept with a non-European and only ever slept with 1 English person. This is something the Baron intends to rectify just so as to make sure no-one can accuse me of racism!

10. the Baron feels he has revealed quite enough information this month and that’s all you’re getting for now.

Song of the Day – Zero 7 ~ Somersault

Original Comments:

Rachel made this comment,
i think the baron has revealed plenty. i now know more than i ever was wondering. thank you! as far as the blog-a-thon is concerned, i don’t know if i have the discipline to go consecutively for a hundred days. it’s quite weird though! i started writing about an hour ago, and once i started, i couldn’t stop! i got almost six pages done, it was so weird!
Visit me @ http://palmysinfullbloom.blog-city.com

comment added :: 28th June 2004, 03:12 GMT+01
protagonist made this comment,
i feel like i know you now red baron. this is gaijin, not paradox. you should get that nose looked into. because redundancy is good in my opinion. also you should not take Asterix too seriously any more if it bites you in the ass like it did. good luck sleeping with women of any race, in the end, as Shel Silverstein once noted, we all look the same when we turn out the lights. look, but maybe not feel…
comment added :: 28th June 2004, 07:27 GMT+01
Bob Red made this comment,
Excellent blog mate!
I have to agree with you on the coffee front, that stuff smells better than it tastes!
But as for wine, i can only distingush 3 types; red, white, and grape juice.
comment added :: 28th June 2004, 22:00 GMT+01
Tine made this comment,
Tine has drunk a total of 7 cups of tea. rasberry, lemon, green, earl gray and that’s about it. I just don’t like the taste or the smell of tea.
Visit me @ http://tine.blog-city.com

This is a very funny film, it displays much of the best facets of French comic cinema. Thierry Lhermitte I remember from Les Ripeaux which is my favourite French film ever. He plays a stuffy middle-class person very well and the demolishing of his sophistication in Le Diner de Cons is a joy to watch, the film manages to stay away from the trap the American films fall into and we find the ‘Con’ almost as frustrating as the protagonist does. The French like most Europeans seem able to do farce without it degenerating into idiocy. You can now get the DVD from Amazon at around £15 but at £5.99 the video is top value and well worth it. Your French doesn’t have to be great to understand it the subtitles are more than adequate but it will add an extra dimension if you can understand the original. I strongly recommend this film to anyone who just wants a good laugh you won’t go far wrong.

Rachel asked “let me ask you a weird question…how long have you been an athiest? when and how did you know? well, i guess, two weird questions..”

Atheism – Hmm how long is tricky I guess I knew for a long time, I mean I remember at school when I was about 11 thinking ‘this is just bollocks there is no such thing’ and that was when I first started to question those tenets that you are taught that you don’t question because it is what everyone tells you so ‘it must be right’.

After a year or so being defiant in school assembly and such like I wanted so much to believe because I started to feel a bit too isolated and as time went on I realised that being an atheist is pretty nihilistic and I never wanted to be a nihilist. I tried to convince myself that so many people couldn’t be wrong but my heart was never really in it and I knew that deep down. I did not at this stage know about Marx but when I did it all started to make a great deal more sense.

The fact that so many people believe is fine for them, it gives them some happy answers to the questions of justice and fairness and ultimately the belief in a happy ending, it would be churlish of me to wish that everyone was like me and saw that life isn’t fair or just and there is no happy ending because it isn’t exactly fun information to pass on, but it’s what I believe.

I think the problem for atheists is we miss out on the spiritualism aspect, humans may need a degree of mysticism in their lives which I guess is how the whole God thing started in the first place. I believe that it was established with this in mind first and only thereafter used as a method for social control.

My problems with religion are purely political, if my children grow up to be religious then fair enough for them as long as they don’t try to get me out of bed on a Sunday morning that’s fine. They will be religiously educated so that they may make up their own mind, I don’t believe you can ever indoctrinate somebody religiously thru’ normal education because eventually they will leave that education system and have to think for themselves, if there’s nothing there they will sense it, if they have personal experience that makes them think otherwise then that alone will be singularly more powerful than any bible classes. Of course I don’t believe this personal experience is what they think it is but then what would I know it isn’t my experience. I’ve lived in a house with a Ghost and I’m still a sceptic so I’m going to take some convincing.

What irritates me the most is the social control, not just the “Opium fuer das Volk” arguement, altho’ that is persuasive enough, but the way this dogmatic idealism is foisted on other people who are quite happy with their own beliefs. It’s called converting the heathen/pagan/heretic. It has led to some of the most barbaric conflicts our species has ever perpetrated. Pogroms, Holocaust, Crusades the list is long and the casualities many millions. It all stems from this human belief in the fact that if you believe in something people who believe in something different must be wrong and must be made to admit they are wrong by force if ness.

The social control problem is very serious, we are peddled this view that this life may be shite but it will all be better in the next, well hey that’s mighty convenient for those doing well and they seem to forget the “first shall be last and last shall be first” paragraph almost as easily as the forgiving your neighbour ’77×7′ times. Funny that! It always pissed me off enormously that the teachings of a humanist who lived 2000 years ago whose political slant nowadays would be described as fairly staunchly left-wing was hijacked by these conservative zealots who choose to take so little of what is actually said. The problem is too many people buy it, is it the fear of being branded a heretic even now that stops people speaking up?

I journeyed back to Valhalla last night just for a fly past nothing more and found that the writer was laying into some commentator who had warned of the dangers of canonising Reagan, the comment valhalla had received from a visitor was not to get so worried becuase people like this commentator would not be ‘making it over to the other side’ anyway. Now this is the sort of idiocy that really hammers home the merits of atheism and secular states to me what a ludicrous comment but endemic particularly of the ‘religious’ right. I can’t improve on Bill Hicks’ arguements on this one so best listen to him.

Song Of The Day – Franz Ferdinand ~ Take Me Out

Original Comments:

Rachel made this comment,
thank you. your perspective let me think of a few things. i don’t know how long i haven’t believed in god, and i haven’t actually researched “athiest”. all i know, is that i have trouble believing in god. everyone i know is trying to get me to go to their churches and read all this shit. but then if i think up a theory, or want to research something in particular, that doesn’t work. it’s like it’s god. one god. or nothing. and i hate that. but thanx!
Visit me @ http://palmysinfullbloom.blog-city.com

comment added :: 27th June 2004, 04:29 GMT+01
john made this comment,
I was educated at a C of E school back in the 1950’s and that was enough of an experience to turn anyone into an atheist.
Visit me @ http://bigjohn.blog-city.com/

[Redbaron responds – Yeah many in Ireland say the same about the dreaded Christian Brothers – a sort of David Cronenberg Monk sceneario!]

comment added :: 28th June 2004, 16:51 GMT+01
Julia Marshall made this comment,
If you say you are an athiest then you claim to belive in nothing… or at least nothing religious. But by claiming this, you are beliving something. And every human being is religious. Everyone had a core of assumptions or beliefs that determine the way they live. The difference is whether you live by your own laws or by God’s.
[Redbaron responds -Thanks for your comment Julia. I would disagree with the atheist believing something, the whole tenet is not believing anything there is a difference is believing something and not believing in something atheists are the latter but that does not make them necessarily the former. Every human being has a conscience and a set of moral values but this does not have anything to do with God, this is partially an inherited set of natural beliefs and partially to do with what we are taught. I’m afraid God only comes into it as a mechanism with which to pass on these beliefs, no different to Aesop’s fables and such like.]

I’ll grant you I was perhaps a little guilty of too much candour there on the last entry, but as I was coming out of the gloom the need for tenderness metamorphosed into the need for a shag and thoughts naturally landed on the fact that good steamy sex has been an all too infrequent visitor Chez Baron and this is a great pity. I take the point about masturbation, were I not an atheist I might see masturbation as proving the existence of God in similar logic to the Babelfish arguement, that something so mind-bogglingly useful cannot have come about by chance and therefore must have been invented deliberately QED God. I have however no desire to get myself killed on the next zebra crossing and will therefore stop at this juncture.(for the non-HHGTTG initiated it’s high time you read it, no excuses now). A last thought on the sex front -you do not actually know how long it has been since I last had sex -I just wanted to make that clear in case somebody was thinking that the poor Baron had gone without for 9 years, trust me that isn’t the case and were it to be so I would by now be in a secure mental hospital or my house-mate would be walking funny!

I don’t know why I did mention it yesterday but it gave me a feeling like mooning in public -you know you are exposing more than people wish to see but the frisson of doing so is somewhat exhilerating in a naughty sort of way! I guess I should have been a proper show-off but I don’t have the life or physique for it.

I am most chuffed at getting 2 plug’s in a week this week which isn’t bad since my blog entries this week have hardly been uplifting stuff. The Protagonist(s) and I have had a rivalry dating back to my being overthrown as the top blog-city commentor, I feel like the leader of the opposition (no, not the one in England currently, I’ll never feel like him) engaging in friendly banter but wanting my nice warm premier seat back all the time! The Protagonist can be found here Do not be surprised if you get confused reading the comments but that’s part of the fun. For anyone who has seen Battle Beyond the Stars Protagonist is like Nestor as in ‘We are Nestor’. To those of you who may point out that the top of the tree currently on the bc commentors is Pimme rest assured, the young pretender will be dealt with!!

I also got a mention from Neil Armstrong…….. let me just leave that one out there for a mo before explaining that he is not that one as the poor fella probably has to explain multiple times a day. Anyway he is currently stuck in the Fatherland, a situation not unknown to me and his blog merits a look too. Find him here and be gentle on him regarding the football it is not big or clever to mock the afflicted!

You know I sit down sometimes and think how that now that I’m over 30, and if I’m not going to be mature then there’s no hope of me ever being so, I should surely have the ability and the resilience to go back into the singles mix at some stage. Ho ho there speaks a man who hasn’t been free and single for over 10 years -and then I was young, free and single! I then wake up from this daydream and remember what it was actually like and it was shite. I hated having to try to tart myself up to an accepted norm to which I was never going to match up trying to make sure that I was wearing clothes that were ok and had had a shave and brushed my hair but most of all I hated how it made me act when I was in whatever meat market venue was the chosen one. I could never strike the middle ground, I knew that I was no catch and also no dancer so rather than look over-enthusiastic I was a bar-propper, now this did mean that I became able to handle an inordinate amount of drink but this was a bad thing because much of the time when I got quite drunk I did reasonably well mainly because I stopped thinking about it and probably looked for someone half a Bacardi Breezer away from comatose. My problem was handling rejection, yes I know Dr. Freud would be well chuffed as I’m quite certain he’d find all sorts of reasons, suffice to say rejection and I do not get along, I tend to take it very personally no matter how logical it actually seems. So you had a choice really, rejection and damn the consequences taking the view of ‘nothing ventured nothing gained’ or the self-preservationist attitude to prevent onese;f getting hurt. I do believe on balance the former is the slightly better strategy but not without its pitfalls it has the potential to be far better if things go right and far far worse if they do not. The question is do you want to live your life in grey or black and white?

The kids came back today a day early, typical in some ways that the ex brought them back tonight, the only night where I had quite a lot to do and the prospect of a lie-in in the morning, but it was special to see them again they were dead chuffed.

Other than that my house-mate is getting heavy about the bills needing to be paid and me clearing my stuff up, this house is a lot more expensive than he had previously led me to believe so it’s not been the ideal partnership. I maay be forced to look at my options which would not be ideal at this stage, I don’t know if the place I moved out of is still available and the prospect of moving back in there in time for the bloody winter doesn’t exactly fill me with glee! I am having to write him a note now outlining that there is simply no money in the kitty. As it is I am trying to methodically go thru’ my stuff and list it on ebay, if you look on ebay it’s practically all mine now! Perhaps I should just start blogging what special offers are available at the Maison de Barone Rouge! I know what the problem is it’s my choice of career I should have gone into crime, I always saw myself as being well cut out for a bit of grand larceny and you can bet your arse I wouldn’t be where I am now -it’s an all or nothing thing I’d either be a Champagne Communist (hurrah!) or a guest of Her Majesty (boo!) (For those not of this country being a ‘guest of her maj’ is a euphemism for being in jail)

Funny how when you start to pick yourself up life has a nasty habit of taking another swing at you! Fortunately it is now close enough to pay day to mean I should be able to hold things together for a bit. It does seem tho’ that each month when you think, just get thru’ this month and it’ll ease off something new comes along to put a spanner in the works. This doesn’t exactly make for an easy ride.

Song Of The Day – US3 ~ Canteloupe

Original Comments:

Rachel made this comment,
let me ask you a weird question…how long have you been an athiest? when and how did you know? well, i guess, two weird questions..
Visit me @ http://palmysinfullbloom.blog-city.com

comment added :: 26th June 2004, 05:33 GMT+01
Rachel made this comment,
the comparison of laws…perhaps…except with the ownership of a gun, there’s only a chance that the gun will degrade or despoil anyone in any way. while owning porn, somewhere, someone is being degraded, even if the participant was willing.
Visit me @ http://palmysinfullbloom.blog-city.com

comment added :: 27th June 2004, 00:27 GMT+01
protagonist made this comment,
we appreciate your plug. i suppose your description of us is better than comparing us to gollum.
how old are you? i have to wonder if there is something to the lifecourse theorists, as this half of the protagonist is also past thirty and has kids and ending a 10-year relationship.

something that goes off in us when we reach this age?

comment added :: 27th June 2004, 01:27 GMT+01
David S made this comment,
how do you know you are top commenter? I thought they tok that out of BC ages ago? or am I missing something obvious?
Visit me @ http://glasgowdave.blog-city.com

What can I say I know it isn’t a great shot but I did rather like the feel of it. Besides if you want real photos you’d be going to see Tine

Original Comments:

Pimme made this comment,
Balloon time is here again! I saw a bunch in the sky this week, I never get tired of their majesty.
Visit me @ http://pimme.blog-city.com

[Redbaron responds -Actually one of the few things about where I live worth mentioning is that they have a balloon festival every year, quite a big one as well, I think only Bristol’s is bigger. It’s usually fun especially for the kids.]

It may or may not interest you to know that it is very nearly 9 years since I last slept with someone that wasn’t my ex, (and it’s been a fair old while since I slept with my ex for obvious reasons) regular readers may actually be able to glean much more from that small snippet of information knowing what they do about me. It’s like one of those logic puzzles where you piece together all the bits and make crosses and ticks on the chart until you are left by a process of elimination to the conclusion that Ann is Peter’s older sister and has a green frog rather than a red car. Eventually if I blog for long enough my whole life will probably be contained herein and there’ll be no need for me to live anymore because you’ll be able to work out what happened next based on precedent.

I didn’t know whether I should tell the opening fact, it is not especially interesting nor particularly significant, I do not kiss and tell, well not unless there’s a bloody good reason anyway. I am also aware that if you go down this route of the revealing facts you have to be careful not to get into self-indulgent blog the dangers of which have already been highlighted by Comrade Sunshine. I agree it is not an inexorable path but a danger nonetheless. I am not however at heart a secretive person I am usually very open and I think pretty honest, if I don’t have a reason to dislike you then I will like you until there is cause to revise that decision. I would like people to remember me as an affable, passionate, loyal, caring, humerous, talkative bloke and whilst they may know that I can be lazy, depressive, disruptive, obstinate, selfish, disorganised, self-absorbed, insensitive and dogmatic, oh and more than just a touch insecure, I hope they will not think of these latter as being overriding traits of my character. I consider myself to be relatively self-aware I know I have many faults and I know I need to work on them, the trouble is that I know that I am not a malicious person, I do not mean anyone harm and I assume wrongly that everyone I come into contact with somehow knows this. Thus I get offended very easily if people are stand-offish or distrusting. I grant you in this world presently to be very trusting may not be seen as favourable or even especially wise but what is the alternative? Well I guess the alternative is all too self-evident and this country is surely one of the worst proponents. I am not comfortable with the belief that everyone is out to screw you, hurt you, kill you regardless of whether they are or not I simply feel that you cannot base a life around this premise otherwise none of us would ever have friends at all.

Rachel made this comment,
you know, what a coincidence, i WAS wondering just how long it had been since you had slept with someone…thank you for filling me in. 🙂
Visit me @ http://palmysinfullbloom.blog-city.com

comment added :: 25th June 2004, 03:38 GMT+01
protagonist made this comment,
yea, we were wondering too!
thanks! good to know!
the philosophy of the protagonists: masterbation is sex with someone you already know you love. yea!
comment added :: 25th June 2004, 05:16 GMT+01
ryan made this comment,
WEEELLL I didnt need to now that
and whats with this: Finally Vai Portugal, Ao menos nós não teremos que pôr acima com as bandeiras sangrentas mais longas, e pesaroso Jaime Sunshine mas eu sou doente do nationalism inglês! thingy?
comment added :: 25th June 2004, 08:03 GMT+01
Katie made this comment,
Is the stand offish comment directed at me? Hope not you know how busy things have been. Finished exams now…I suck but never mind. Going to Brighton with J tomorrow so won’t get chance to check emails etc as plan to get v pissed this evening. Hope you’re feeling better.
Love Kate xx
[Redbaron responds – No dear, nothing to do with you, comments about you will be made directly where necessary -insecure yes, gutless no. You get v. pissed, I may even do the same before the Famille arrive back tomorrow.]

comment added :: 25th June 2004, 16:26 GMT+01
moog made this comment,
hey man, i was also wondering how long it has een since you last slept with someone…
i was also wondering if you had any idea about the strange numbers next to some peoples names? its like we are all cyber prisoners or something…eeek…(have deleted my number, am i bad?)
Visit me @ http://jealoustwin.blog-city.com/

[Redbaron responds – It was……. no wait the serum is wearing off…. what was the question? No fecking way am I answering that, a Baron must have some air of mystery. As for the nos. I think they’re our RSS nos. which appear to have been appended, I deleted mine too but then that’s ‘cos I a bad motherfucker!]